Are you a quintessential good girl? Do you have an irresistible urge to be perfect? Do you have random outbursts of emotion that you just can’t understand? Do people tell you that you’re just too damned nice, then go ahead and hurt your feelings?

You may be suffering from the ‘Nice Girl’ affliction. Just like men are conditioned to suppress their emotions, women struggle with the after effects of early childhood conditioning too.

Women are so used to conforming to this societal image of perfection that they don’t even realize something is terribly wrong with them.

Nice girls put other’s needs and feelings before their own. They put themselves in another person’s shoes and rationalize their unacceptable actions. They assume that everyone is going to be as fair, kind-hearted and honest as them. They put up with abusive behavior, and let people cross their personal boundaries. They give them too many chances, and fall for everything because they stand for nothing.

Nice girls deny and hide their feelings, until they can no longer bottle it up, and then they explode. This leads to an emotional showdown for which they feel guilty about afterwards, and then proceed to profusely apologize. It is a vicious cycle, which continuously erodes their self- esteem, and causes them to question their own actions and feelings.

Nice girls assume that strong women are obnoxious and opinionated. They do not realize the difference between assertion and arrogance or confidence and egotism.

They are not aware of what it truly means to have healthy boundaries, and have a really hard time saying no for fear of confrontation and being disliked. They back down from an argument even if they know they’re right, because they don’t want to displease anyone. They are convinced that they have to always be good, empathetic and kind, no matter how they are being treated in return.

Nice girls are the perfect prey for narcissistic people, both in relationships and workplaces. Narcissists often gaslight and push the blame for their own actions onto women they view as weak. Nice girls reward their behavior by questioning what is wrong with themselves, rather than the other person’s motives. Such women begin to equate love and friendship with pain and longing, rather than comfort, growth and support.

Nice girls suppress their feelings, and think that they are being nice by being socially acceptable. They falsely believe that being compassionate will make everyone love them, and keep them happy.

They do not realize that they are actually being two- faced and hypocritical. Negative emotions like anger, hatred, jealousy, guilt and shame are present in each and every one of us.

They need to be channeled and handled in a healthy manner, as opposed to simply denying their existence. All that suppression manifests itself in emotionally manipulative ways, which is probably why women are known to be more back-bitingly bitchy and sneakily catty, as compared to the overtly aggressive actions of men.

Nice girls believe that being too nice will somehow save them. Fed on fairy-tales in their childhood, they naively believe that their most desirable qualities are femininity and innocence.

Nice girls need to re-evaluate which qualities they would like to aspire towards, such as intelligence, strength of spirit, courage and passion.

They need to understand that they can be polite yet firm, nice yet strong without coming across as mean, underhanded or aggressive.

They need to start respecting themselves, and work on developing their own personalities, sense of self-worth and confidence to become authentic as fully realized human beings.